


An Unwanted Homecoming

by Asterisk



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Isolation, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-09-22
Packaged: 2018-02-11 19:35:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2080530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asterisk/pseuds/Asterisk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There wasn't a group for Daryl before the apocalypse, and he didn't expect any different afterwards. It was only by chance that he found Sophia, a little girl who got herself lost in the wood, and through a series of unexpected events that followed, Daryl found himself with an unlikely family, unlikely allies, and a crisis that left no room for his self-sustained isolation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story was inspired by a prompt on the kink meme. However, it varies significantly and fills the requirements in what are probably the loosest terms. Nevertheless, it's [this](http://twd-kinkmeme.livejournal.com/5396.html?thread=7699476#t7699476) prompt that served as the inspiration.

It only took a small noise to snap Daryl awake. It was too dark to see anything even with the clear night sky and the moon and stars pouring through the treetops, but he’d never been one to rely only on his sight. The cans he’d strung up with extra wire were rattling, pointing him towards the intruder, and he already knew where he was going before he’d armed himself with a crossbow or jumped down from the branches of the tree.

His feet silently made contact with the ground when he landed and he held his crossbow steady, slowly creeping towards the dark patch of undergrowth where he’d heard the sound coming from. The night was loud, with insects and frogs singing in the sticky summer heat, but the crunch in the undergrowth was obvious.

Whatever was there was buried in the shadows, too far out of his range of vision to see anything. It stilled, no longer battering against the wire or the cans, but it was still there, hiding.

It growled as he approached – a feral sound, too animalistic to be a person creeping through the night and accidentally stumbling across his well-hidden camp. If anyone was stupid enough to be blindly running around at night, they’d have been dead a long time ago, at the start of the outbreak.

Whatever it was, it was too smart to be one of the undead, and too quiet.

Carefully, so as not to make a sound, he edged closer to the blackness, finger hovering over the trigger and ready to shoot, right before he heard it again, rustling through the underbrush and knocking against another cluster of cans. He whipped his body around, backing up as he expertly followed the noise and silently chased the sound with the tip of his arrow, careful to not make a sound.

It was too late. The damn creature was already out of the shadows, digging through the pile of cans and jars he’d stacked between the tree and the stone wall, along with the bag of fresh vegetables he’d pulled up from some farmer’s garden a few days before.

It was shot and killed before it had a chance to run, but as Daryl came closer he saw it had already tore through the bag and was in the process of scattering vegetables around the tree.

“You see that, Merle?” he grunted, finally acknowledging the moans coming from around the side of the tree. He pulled his arrow out of the raccoon’s body and lifted the creature to get a look at it in the moonlight. Their camp was at just the right place to catch all the light that washed across the field and over the wall, right before everything went black as the forest engulfed it.

“I didn’t keep it alive for you,” he muttered. A faint groan. It didn’t mean anything, and it sure as fuck wasn’t meant for him – just instincts, as much of a response to the ruckus as to his words.

He could still dream.

Daryl knelt on the ground, careful to stay quiet as he stacked the cans in the space between the tree and the wall.

Somewhere, he’d read about stone walls in the Scottish highlands and the ancient castles that were still standing centuries later. There wasn’t much in the way of camping there, but in a land so far away and so isolated, it would be something.

There wasn’t much here. The wall was something, and his camp was only what he’d made it – a small clearing at the top of the hill with a single tree growing tangent to the wall that he’d used for a base. Good enough – it was better than trying to make something out of those houses, so soon after the epidemic first struck. He could only think back to his and Merle’s last attempt to set up something in a place that people might think to look.

And anyway, it wasn’t like the forests hadn’t always been more of a home to him than everywhere else, as long as he took care of himself and used common sense.

He finished stacking the collection of cans and jars and leaned back against the tree for a moment. If he wanted to keep the raccoon, he’d have to skin it and cook it then if he didn’t want the meat to go bad.

Daryl sighed and kicked a few pieces of wood into the fire pit. It was dark and the smoke and fire would be obvious, but it had been weeks since he’d seen anyone who wasn’t Merle. No point wasting food, no matter how good a hunter he was.

It wasn’t like he’d be getting any sleep anymore, anyway.

Eventually the sky started to lighten. Daryl glanced up from the small fire that was now burned down to embers and watched as the sun rose across the field, painting the sky with pale pinks and oranges. Clouds drifted across the horizon and lit up the gold fields. Every so often Daryl glanced across the untamed wheat at the empty road, unsurprised to see no one coming by but still expecting someone to drive up empty country road.

He’d finished skinning and cooking the coon and had its skin hanging over the wall. It would need to be tossed away later while he was out scouting around the area and finding some food for Merle.

“You ready to get up?” he asked. There wasn’t any sound that was any different from the noises Merle always made.

He walked around the side of the tree to look at what was left of his brother now that the light started to reach them. The chains he’d stolen from a farm were wrapped tightly around his neck and waist, binding him to the tree and keeping him in place. Daryl was fairly certain that if it had been someone still living, he’d be able to free himself, but in the state Merle was, he’d be there for a while.

Daryl glanced down at the clammy grey skin that sagged around the edges and his dirty, reddened eyes. There were holes rotted into his brother’s flesh, and the skin around his mouth was torn to reveal teeth that were more yellowed in this substitute for death than they’d ever been while he was alive.

“We’ve got a long day to day,” Daryl said. His voice was harsh, and he turned his back on Merle and looked over to the woods. “Bet this is your fault, isn’t it? Eating too much, making too much noise. Serves us right, though. Not like we were expecting anything else, gettin’ on like this.”

He snorted, looking over to the jars with a frown. There were enough there that they’d last a while, but he’d need to ration them in case he didn’t find food before winter.

He walked along the edge of his makeshift camp. The wires and cans were still up, but a few of the boards he’d propped up between trees to keep geeks and bigger animals away were knocked down, including a hole poked through one of the crates. 

Nothing he had would be much good if people came by, but out here, people were the least of his problem. The most the fences actually did was give him an extra few seconds to arm himself with his crossbow or pull out his knife. The real defense was the cans and glass bottles strung up around the perimeter. Anything that tried to cross those, no matter how small, would make a racket.

If last night had done nothing else, it proved his system worked – at least, when it came to wildlife.

Daryl lost count of how many times this had already been proven to him.

He found some squirrels early in the day and brought them back to Merle, still alive. He’d been a good hunter for a long time and still had reservations about not killing his prey instantly, but the undead didn’t give a shit about anything that wasn’t still alive when they started eating it, and Merle needed to eat.

He left Merle to it and started off again. More firewood needed to be collected, and he’d need to find something else to use for those fences. Somewhere nearby there would be more houses, although he knew better than to go too close to the bigger roads. Cars had piled up there while everyone was panicking, and now long stretches of road were graveyards for both cars and for people.

Daryl headed to the road, turning left walking towards one of the nearby farms he’d looted a few weeks ago… it must have been a few weeks ago, by this point. He was losing track of how long he’d been out here, just knowing that the temperature was finally leaning towards a bit less than sweating balls. Soon it would be fall, then winter, and when that happened, he’d really need to start worrying.

It didn’t take too long to find a farm, and from the barn he was able to pull out the bottoms of crates and drag them back the half-mile to his camp. It was slow going, and the sun was just past midday when he finally got back. His heart sank before he even got to the wall.

A girl was standing by his camp on the side of the tree where Merle was.

He dropped the slats of wood and ran back to the camp. “Hey!” he called to her.

She looked up and took a step back, glancing from side to side and clutching her hands to her chest. She stole another look at where Merle was, and then back to Daryl, eyes wide with terror.

“Hey,” he said as he came closer. “Get away from him!”

He peered over the wall down to Merle. He was still chained down with the bones and carcasses of the squirrels scattered around him from all his previous meals. He stretched his arms up towards the girl and groaned, he couldn’t reach her, although not for lack of trying.

“For fuck’s sake, Merle,” he snapped. “You don’t need nothing else – you got what you need, so don’t go touching that girl.”

His hands were almost shaking. He made them into fists, then looked up at the girl. “Did he get you?” he demanded.

She stared back at Merle and then took a step away from. The poor thing was practically shaking, her knees turned inwards and her hands holding the space above her heart like it would fall out if she let go. Daryl couldn’t see any injuries on her, but she was covered in dirt and blood and grime and there wasn’t any way of telling how bad she was – just that she looked weak and little and dirty, but alive.

“Hey!” he shouted. “Can ya answer me?”

“It didn’t!” she said.

Daryl glared back at Merle, then climbed over the wall and walked over to her. “Alright.”

It was still hard to believe there was someone here – a living, breathing person who wasn’t dead. He wasn’t even sure she _was_ here; there wasn’t anyone left, and hadn’t been in weeks. If anyone was still alive, they weren’t here, and hadn’t been in a while.

He was alone, just himself and Merle, and now this girl.

“I—” she stopped, hesitating.

“Yeah?”

“I didn’t think there’d be someone out here, or that…” she looked towards Merle.

“Just ignore him,” Daryl said, waving a hand in front of her and then motioning the girl around the side of the tree. Each time he blinked he worried she’d vanish, and then he’d know he was really going crazy. “What’re you doing out here?”

“I’m lost,” she said. “I was with my mom, and some other people, but I got lost out here.”

“Yeah, you would, wouldn’t you?” he asked. “Sit down.”

She glanced behind her and took a seat on one of the logs. Her trembling was even more obvious than it had been before, now that she was off her feet and looking around herself. “Do you live here?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he grunted. “Just me and my brother.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment, instead keeping her eyes pointed down at her feet and lightly fidgeting with the hem of her shirt. “Is… is that your brother?” she asked, her voice soft and gaze flickering over towards the trees.

“Yeah,” he said. His stomach clenched and a sting started at the back of his throat, but he quickly swallowed it down. He wasn’t going to dwell on this. He wasn’t going to think about it.

“So who are you?” he asked. He leaned back against the wall.

“My name’s Sophia,” she said. “And yours?”

“Daryl,” he said. “Now, look, Sophia. This ain’t a safe place out here. I’m sure you know that. Your mommy, she’s…”

“She’s all right,” she said. “So was everyone else.”

“And you just got lost,” he said. Sophia nodded in confirmation. “Well, like I said, it ain’t safe out here. I don’t know where I should be bringin’ you, and you probably don’t know where you’re supposed to be, else you wouldn’t be here.”

“I-I’m sorry,” she said.

Daryl shook his head. “Nah, don’t worry about it. I can’t leave this place here though, not for too long. I’ve got to…” He had to keep Merle fed, but what a joke that was. Sophia looked up at him, and he knew that she knew it was stupid, just as stupid as he knew it was, but _fuck_.

“I gotta stay here,” he repeated. “But I’ll help you out, and I’ll go out and take a look for them. Sound good?”

Sophia agreed. “When will we start looking?”

“I got shit to do today,” Daryl said, motioning to where the makeshift fences were falling apart. “The earliest I can start is tomorrow. I’ll be going out early in the morning, right quick. You can tell me where you remember coming from, and we’ll go from there.”

She nodded, and after talking a bit more and telling Daryl some of the landmarks she’d seen, he thought he had a rough idea about where to start looking.

“Guess we’ll start tomorrow,” he said, then offered some of the raccoon meat from the night before. She accepted.

It was only after he’d watched her eat and still found himself feeling hungry, and after he’d finished fixing up the holes around his camp and turned back to see she was still there that he accepted that she was well and truly real, and that in spite of everything else, he hadn’t completely lost his mind.


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning came and Daryl woke to find Sophia curled against his chest. His hand rested on her shoulder in the same place it had when they’d fallen asleep, holding her so she couldn’t fall out of the tree. The sun hadn’t finished rising. Through the treetops he could see the red-tinted sky; it would be a clear day, as good a day as any to start looking for the girl’s mom.

He waited in the tree a while longer until the sun finished rising, leaving the sky crisp and blue. It was later than he’d usually rest; if it wasn’t for the girl, he’d be on his feet seconds after opening his eyes. Being idle for too long led to jittery legs and racing thoughts, and by the time Sophia came around he’d long since grown restless and ready to get going.

She gently cracked her eyes open and jerked back in his lap. Daryl grabbed her arm to steady her and to prevent a fall. The shock of seeing where she was startled her awake, and she looked up at Daryl with a worried frown and furrowed eyebrows. 

“Oh, um, Daryl?” she asked. Her arms folded around her body and she looked out at the woods. It was a situation he’d been in many times before, waking up in strange places with strangers he’d never met until the day before; usually, though, they were more of a threat than he was to her.

“Morning,” he said. He looked down to the bottom of the tree where Merle was, frowned, and leaned back again. “Can you climb down by yourself, or do you need a hand?”

“I’m fine,” she said. Carefully she maneuvered herself to the side of the tree closest to the fence and tried to stretch her leg down to reach it. It was too far, and after a minute of watching her struggle, Daryl grabbed her arms and dangled her over the tree, earning a startled yelp before her feet found traction on the rocks and she could grab the tree trunk for support. He followed shortly after.

“I need to feed Merle, but then we can be on our way.” He didn’t look at her while he said it; the whole thing was fucked up, he knew that, and sure as hell didn’t need to see it on some little girl’s face, too.

He grabbed his crossbow and glanced around the side of the tree on his way out of camp. “You just sit here, ‘n be quiet. Eat somethin’ if you need it, but don’t bother Merle or nothin’ like that. Got it?”

He looked back just in time to see her nod and take a seat at the side of the tree opposite to Merle. She made herself comfortable in the little nest Daryl had been made, a damp, mossy gap filled from scavenged blankets, a sweater, and a few jackets.

It didn’t take long for Daryl to find the squirrels he was looking for. When he came back Sophia was exactly where he’d left her, all curled up with her back against the tree and her arms tucked around her legs. Thank god – he didn’t know if he could deal with one of those brats who did none of the things they were told to do, especially not if it was going to be something as stupid as running off when she was already lost and it would be dangerous as hell everywhere she looked

He tossed the squirrels to Merle, took a few scraps of food for himself, and soon enough he and Sophia were ready to go.

“I remember coming from that way,” she said. She pointed out at the woods.

“Yeah, you said that,” he said. “You said your people were by the road, right?”

She nodded a few times, then stopped and raised her hand to her mouth. Hesitantly, she asked, “Do you think they’re still waiting?”

“Don’t see why they wouldn’t be.”

They trekked across the field and through the trees that lined the other side before finally reaching one of the many country roads that made a grid between the forests and the fields. He and Merle had come up this way weeks ago, Daryl driving and Merle resting in the passenger’s seat with his fevered head resting against the cool glass. Each bump on the uneven road had earned a hiss of pain from Merle, but nothing more; the lack of swearing or verbal abuse was more worrying than anything else, even the gaping wound on his shoulder.

Goddamnit, what had he expected to happen?

“Daryl?” Sophia asked.

He walked the few steps across the road to the car away he’d stored away. It wasn’t inconspicuous by any definition of that word; anyone driving up or down the road would see it, even with leaves he’d used to cover it. Just because it was there didn’t mean anyone had stopped to look at it, and as he brushed a few branches away to get to the door, he was relieved to see that no one had been touching it. Looking at how quiet the road was and how few people were left, he wondered if anyone had even been down this way in the weeks since they’d parked up here.

“What is it?” he asked.

“What’re you doing?”

“Get in the car,” he said, himself pulling open the driver’s seat and climbing in. When he closed the door a few branches and leaves got caught inside, but whatever. It wasn’t like it was a nice car, just nice enough to be useful.

Once Sophia climbed inside, he rolled out from under the trees and took his place back on the road. “Your people are by the road,” he said. “No sense going through the woods to find them if we can do it like this, since that’s where they’ll be.”

“Oh,” Sophia said. She sat back in her seat for a thoughtful moment, then spent the rest of the drive looking out her window and watching as they drove through the countryside.

There were no signs of life, either on the road or beside it. Every so often they’d pass a farmhouse and Daryl would slow down to get a good closer look at it. There never seemed to be anyone inside, nor were there any other hints that anyone had been there since the epidemic broke out. 

“Do you know where you were going?” he asked. They were approaching a highway, and going only from where she’d pointed earlier that morning, he had some idea about where to look for her people.

“We were coming back from the CDC,” she said. “Do you know what that is?”

Daryl’s lip twitched and he had to bite his tongue before he said anything he’d regret; she was just a kid, she probably didn’t even mean anything by it. “Center for Disease Control,” he murmured. “What you guys doin’ going away from there? Shouldn’t you all be headed up that way instead?”

“We went there,” Sophia said. She paused again just as Daryl took a turn left, finally turning onto a bigger road. It was just as empty as the country roads, but Daryl doubted it would be for long.

“What happened once you got there?” he prompted.

“Well… it didn’t go well,” she said. “There was a man working there, and he didn’t let us leave. It was good, for that first night, but then he locked us in, and said that it would be better if we just…”

He cringed and circled around an abandoned car. Sophia had stopped talking again and was just looking at her hands, and an upset kid wasn’t something that Daryl wanted to deal with – not now, or ever.

“That blows,” he said. He wasn’t sure what he was agreeing with, but whatever happened at the CDC sounded like it hadn’t gone well. Going up that way had never been part of his plans; what would they do for him when he was like this? Anyway, it wouldn’t have looked good if he’d walked up there with Merle tagging along the way he was, so that settled it.

It had been a hope, something at the back of his head, right there with the unseen military presence that he was sure was doing something to save the world. Somewhere, life was going on because some people were out there trying to sort this shit out, regardless of whether he saw them or not.

But that wasn’t the case, it seemed.

They reached a cluster of cars soon. Sophia looked out both windows but didn’t recognize the place. Nonetheless, they got out and searched through back seats of cars and the trunks. Daryl came away with several bottles of water and preserved snacks, and Sophia seemed to have as much luck. Overall it was a success, and everything was thrown into the back seat at Daryl’s instruction, but it wasn’t what they’d gone out looking for.

They managed to maneuver the car through the pile of abandoned vehicles, and before too long they were on their way again. Sophia adopted a worried look and her fingers clenching and unclenching in her lap. She kept looking out the windows and staring across the open fields and into the dense forests they passed, every so often squinting into the sunlight to look ahead of them.

“Do you recognize any of this?” Daryl asked after a while.

“I don’t,” she admitted. “I wasn’t paying attention while we drove. I’m sorry!”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. It was quiet and he wondered if she’d even heard, but she didn’t say anything else. If she had some idea at least of what he was looking for, he’d at least have some idea of where to start looking. Saying it was between a field and the forest didn’t narrow it down out on the Georgia highways, even if he did know to keep a lookout for clusters of cars.

Eventually Daryl stopped the car, made a three-point-turn in the middle of the highway, and drove back the way they came. Sophia sat low in her seat for the whole ride back, dejected and no closer to finding her group of people than she had been that morning.

Everything was still in order when they got back to the camp. The sun was setting over the forest and the trees cast murky blue shadows on the camp. Daryl wasn’t sure what he’d expected to come back to, but a weight lifted off his chest once he saw Merle still chained to the tree, blindly struggling to get up. His stomach knotted as he lifted Sophia over the fence and his throat tightened.

Sophia stood by the tree on the side opposite where Merle was, the same as she had that morning. The trunk was big enough that Daryl would have to stand a ways back in the field if he wanted to look at them both, but he didn’t have to. Only Sophia was going to be doing anything worth noticing, and it was enough to just know Merle was alive.

It was still light enough that starting a fire wasn’t a risk. If there was anyone out there, Daryl didn’t want to attract them; smoke was enough of a risk during the day, and he didn’t need to amplify it at night.

There was enough food that they could both eat until they were comfortably full, and once they were finished, they both just sat there. Every so often Merle would make a noise, causing Sophia to jump and curl in tighter on herself, and Daryl to look up. Sophia didn’t ask about him, so Daryl wasn’t saying anything.

Eventually, Sophia broke the silence. “Do you think we’ll find them again?” She leaned back against the tree when Daryl looked at her, looking back into the fire when he didn’t answer right away.

“Don’t know,” he answered. 

She didn’t look up. Maybe his answer had been too honest; she was young and without the skills or guts to make it on her own. The only thing she had to drive her forward was hope and a bit of optimism, a combination that Daryl had long ago learned was deadly in large doses.

“Doesn’t mean we ain’t gonna look,” he muttered. “If they’re out there, we’ll find them.”

“If,” she repeated.

“Well, they are out there,” he said. “We’ll find where those cars were, and they’ll be there.”

“They will be,” she agreed. “My mom wouldn’t let them leave without me. She’d wait.”

“Don’t got nothing to worry about, then, do you?” he asked. “They’ll be there when we find the place.”

She nodded in agreement. Daryl risked a glance in her direction and saw how she curled in on herself, her hands clasped under her legs and her head resting on her knees.

After a few minutes he got up and walked around the tree to where Merle was. Sophia’s gaze followed him until he stepped into the shadows, where he only had the flickering light from the fire to see with. He crouched down in front of Merle for a moment. The walker that took over his brother smelled him and leaned forward, but Daryl knew how long the chain was and had been sure to sit past its reach so that even with his arm out stretched, his brother wasn’t able to grab him.

He wasn’t sure what to say now that he was out of sight of Sophia; she could still hear him, and getting up to do something so he wouldn’t have to think about the sad, scared little girl wasn’t a good plan when there wasn’t much to do other than talk to his undead brother.

He’d been more talkative when it had been just him and Merle and no one else who was alive. Nights passed with him sitting on one side of the tree and Merle on the other, his voice the only sound he focused on apart from the cracks in wilderness and the groans Merle made. He fell asleep to those sounds, sometimes whispering things to himself or to Merle, too quiet to be heard even if Merle could listen.

Now it was just stupid. Having someone there who could listen made talking even more impossible, and he didn’t want to say anything if there was a chance she’d hear it. It wasn’t like it was normal to be talking to yourself when no one else was around, but it at least seemed excusable. It was still crazy, yes, but nothing about the situation at the time had been normal.

Maybe it said something that being alone brought that out in him. (But he wasn’t alone; Merle had been out there with him the whole time.)

Daryl looked into Merle’s face for a moment before swearing and walking back around to the fire, returning to his seat.

“We’ll get up tomorrow and go out again,” he said. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll find you your family and shit, all right?”

She nodded.

“Look, just don’t worry too much about it,” he said. “You’ll be fine, alright? I’ll get you back.”

“Will you stay with us?” she asked.

Daryl snorted. “I’ve got my own place out here,” he said to himself. “Besides, I don’t think your people would like me all that much.” 

They wouldn’t want one of the geeks to be living with them, and they wouldn’t want the sort of person who kept his undead brother around, either, especially not when he knew it was wrong but did it anyway.

“It’s not true,” Sophia said with a shake of her head.

“Isn’t it?” he asked.

“You’re helping me. That’s enough. If you wanted to stay, they’d let you come back with me, too.”


	3. Chapter 3

For the few days that followed, the routine stayed the same: Daryl would wake at dawn and wait until Sophia was up. He’d get food for Merle and say a few words to him while Sophia sat in the nest of dirtied cloths on the other side of the tree. Then they’d set off, taking the car and driving up and down the highways in search of the car cluster where Sophia’s people had last been. Most of the driving was done in silence, with Sophia looking out at the fields or into the street ahead of them. A few times conversations came up, and they’d talk for a while; Daryl didn’t know about the things Sophia would talk about, and even though he told her she could talk while he drove, she eventually fell quiet and stopped trying to fill in the silence. On the handful of times when they ran out of gas, Daryl had to find another car and siphon gas so they could keep driving. After the second time, he explained to Sophia what he was doing and showed her. At clumps of cars parked on the side of the road, they stopped and looted for supplies. By the end of the week, Daryl was better stocked on supplies than he had ever been in his life, even before the world ended. The irony wasn’t lost him.

They didn’t have any luck finding where Sophia’s people were meant to be. By the end of the week, Daryl took them down back roads as a final effort to find her people.

“How many did you say there were?” he asked.

“Like, ten?” she said, trying to count everyone off. “Nine, when you count me, too.”

“Right, well,” he said. “A group like that won’t be all that hard to find.”

After spending a few days driving circles through the lonely country roads, Daryl decided on a new approach. The morning started the same as they all did: he woke up, and waited in the tree until Sophia woke up, peaking down the tree a few times to check on Merle. When Sophia woke, they climbed out of the tree and sat around the ashes of the fire from the night before.

“We’re trying something different today,” Daryl said as he handed her breakfast to her.

“Yeah?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “We’ll start goin’ through the houses out around here. They might’ve fucked off and tried to find someplace else to stay while they look for you.”

“Do you think they’re looking for me?” she asked.

Daryl shrugged. “Don’t know why they wouldn’t. Your mom’s there, right?”

She nodded. “Yeah, but they might think I died and move on. They… there were other people who they left because they thought they died, or because they were going to die.”

“We’ll keep looking,” Daryl said. “Do they have anywhere to go?”

“We were going up to Fort Benning,” she said. “They might be going that way.” She looked up at him, her knuckles white where she gripped the piece of dried meat he’d handed her and a look of panic on her face.

“Hey, hey,” Daryl said. He sat back away from the fire. “Don’t start thinking like that yet. We’ll just keep looking around here. I mean, you’re a kid. People got soft spots for kids, especially their own. They’ll be looking for you.”

“How do you know?” she asked.

“Why wouldn’t they?”

“Why would they?” she countered. Daryl had something to say and was about to answer, but before did he noticed the tears starting in the corners of her eyes. She clutched her arms against her stomach and leaned forward, her bottom lip trembling. Fuck. No. Daryl wasn’t dealing with a crying kid; what do you even say to them when they get upset like that? 

“I’m not important,” she choked out. “They’d just be wasting their time, looking for me. I’m wasting your time, aren’t you?”

“What else would I be doing?” he asked.

“I don’t know!” she said.

Daryl frowned. Like hell he knew how to deal with this. “Look, you stop cryin’,” he said. Sophia looked up at him, and he looked to the left of her head, at the tree behind her. He wasn’t going to meet her eyes. “We’ll keep looking. It’s all we can do right now, so there ain’t no sense worrying about it like that, much less crying over it. Got it?”

She nodded. “And if we don’t find them…?”

He shrugged. “We’ll deal with it then. Don’t think about it for now. We don’t even know if we’ll get back tonight.”

Sophia wiped her eyes with the palm of her hand, rubbing dirt on her face.

They crossed the field and went back to the road. Daryl didn’t bother stopping in by the houses on that main road; he’d searched through a few for basic necessities before, and had watched the roads and driveways for any cars that might have appeared, parked in front of a house. There weren’t any now, and with a group of around ten people, they’d have cars would be cars.

“You tell me if you see any houses around here that got your cars in them,” he said. “Check for any cars, too, but especially yours.”

“Why don’t you stay in one of the houses?” Sophia asked as they set off.

Daryl shrugged. “Anyone left is gonna be looting places like that. Don’t wanna make myself a target.”

“There aren’t many people left,” Sophia pointed out.

“I know,” he said. “Doesn’t change much.”

“You’d have to be really unlucky for something like that to happen.”

“It ain’t luck; it’s having your own back,” he said. “’sides, it’d be a pain to move Merle all that way.”

“There’s a house right across the road from the field,” she said. “We pass it on the way to the car.”

“Don’t wanna stay in that one,” Daryl murmured.

“Why not?”

Daryl shrugged. “Still a pain in the ass getting him back there. Why bother?”

“It’ll get cold.”

“And I’ll deal with it then,” he snapped. “Christ, I don’t see why this is so hard for you to get your head around.”

Sophia looked at him for a moment as if about to say something, then fell quiet until they reached one of the houses down the road. As they passed it, Daryl slowed the car, looking down the driveway to see if anyone was there. It was empty; there was no way in hell a group of ten would be staying there.

He pulled up anyway.

“Alright,” he said as they climbed out. “Here’s the deal: you be careful in there. Stand behind me, keep a look out. We don’t know if whoever lived there got out, or if they died and are still in there. Got it?”

Sophia nodded, and they went into the house. Once they cleared the house and found no one in there, dead or alive, Daryl made a line to the kitchen and Sophia made her way through the front rooms to look at what was left. He came out with a bag of cans and a collection of knives, and Sophia walked away with a new blanket.

In the house they visited after, there were five cars parked in the driveway. Daryl crept inside first, closely followed by Sophia. They made it as far as the living room before Daryl stopped them; he recognized that smell, and whatever was behind the door wasn’t something a little girl should be seeing. They turned back to move on to the next house.

The next house had a room belong to a girl who must’ve been a few years older than Sophia. She took some clean clothes and a small number of books back with them to the car; anything Daryl might have found useful was already stripped away by looters. 

The fourth house was missing its front door, and once inside they found wreckage in the form of overturned furniture and smashed tables. Windows were broken from the inside out, and cupboard doors were pulled off their hinges. Smashed bottles of booze littered the floor, and with each step, glass crunched under Daryl’s feet. A gun was left behind on the kitchen counter with enough ammunition to last a while, especially as Daryl had his crossbow. He took it, and didn’t mention it to Sophia.

In the fifth house, Daryl cleared all the rooms on the first floor and was on his way through clearing the second floor when he heard a door open behind him. He whipped around, crossbow at the ready, only to see Sophia with her back to him and the door to the master bedroom open.

“What the fuck?” he demanded, marching down the hall between the kid’s room he was looking at and where she stood. “I told you to stay behind me.”

He looked from Sophia’s face to the inside of the room. The smell hit him first, then the sight. On the bed he saw the form of someone laying on their side, facing away from him. They wore a pink dress that fluttered from the breeze of the window left open, and flies swarmed around the ceiling and the top of the bed. The top of the bed and the headboard were stained a dark brown.

“Come on,” he muttered, and reached out to grab the handle of the door, slamming the room shut in front of Sophia, who continued to stare.

“Let’s get out of here,” he muttered, leading the way out of the house and back to the car. Sophia followed close behind. When they reached the car, she climbed into the passenger seat and shut the door behind her.

She didn’t say a word; Daryl was glad.

In the days that followed, they went through several more houses. There were signs that people had been, but no signs of Sophia’s people. She didn’t mention the possibility that they had moved on, abandoning her, and he didn’t express his growing certainty that they were gone.

After a few days of searching houses top to bottom, gutting them of anything they might find useful while remaining painfully aware that it wasn’t what they were looking for, they came to another house, this one larger than most of the farm houses in the area. Daryl took up his crossbow as he got out of the car, shutting the door and looking around.

The gardens were overgrown and the grass was unkept, apart from the flattened grass behind a row of five cars parked a ways off the lawn. The quality of the cars ranged between a housewife’s soccer minivan to a hummer to a slick black car that might have looked impressive when the owner still had the means to care for it.

“Those aren’t the cars we had,” Sophia quietly said. She looked up to the house; Daryl’s gaze followed, expecting to see someone in the windows.

“Look next to the cars,” he murmured.

Sophia looked: two places where the grass was flattened in the shape of more cars.

“I didn’t notice those,” she said.

Daryl made a move back to the car. “Looks like there might be people around here, meaning there might be people inside.”

“Should we go up and check?” she asked. “They might still be there.”

He shook his head. “Nah. Don’t know what sort they are, and there a lot of the bad sort out here these days.”

Sophia looked around. “So what are we going to do?”

Daryl motioned for her to get into the car. “Get back to our camp for now. I’ll stake the place out for a while, see what sorts they are, and then we’ll decide what to do from there.”

“Do you think they’ve seen my mom?” she asked as she got back in the car on her side.

He backed out of the driveway and began driving. Luck seemed to be on their side that day, as they didn’t pass any cars coming or going. “They might’ve,” he said. “If they do, they could tell us how to get there.”

Daryl made note of where the house was and how to get there. A sinking feeling was beginning to form in his stomach as they drove away from the place; what would there even be to say if they found anyone? Apart from Merle, Sophia was the only person he’d talked to in weeks, and neither of them were much of a threat to him, or had anything bad to say – hell, they both needed him.

“That’s the best case scenario,” he said. Even in that situation it didn’t looking good. He made the dry motions of swallowing, and his fingers gripped the steering wheel tighter.

“You don’t seem very eager,” she observed.

Daryl shrugged. “Don’t like people, is all. Wouldn’t want to get involved like that.”

“Isn’t it safer, though?” she asked. “If there are a lot of people, you’re better off.”

“I’ve been alone for a while,” he said. “I can take care of myself. ‘sides, people don’t really want much to do with someone like me, if they can help it. Doesn’t end well for anyone. Anyway, I don’t trust that any of those people are up to anything good, not without proof, and I’d rather not find out firsthand that it’s the bad option.”

“So are we not going to try to talk to them?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I’m gonna watch ‘em for a few days. If they don’t seem too bad, I’ll talk to them, see if they found your people, and then go from there. It’s not like they’ll know where we’re staying, so we’re safe with that.”

“Yeah, I guess,” she said. “We will find them, right?”

“Don’t know,” he said, for the first time voicing the doubt he was beginning to have. At this rate it looked like he’d be stuck with her; they hadn’t found any hint about where her people could be, even after weeks of driving around.

It was easier to justify hoping these people weren’t awful so he could drop Sophia off with them if he wrote off the possibility of finding her group as being impossible. If he couldn’t do anything else to help her, then what was the point of keeping her around? He never asked for the responsibility of having a kid at the end of the world, and she’d be better with anyone who wasn’t him.

“Do you think they’re gone?” she asked, her voice quiet.

“I think it’s something to consider.”

“What will we do then?” she asked.

“Don’t know,” he said, although his choices were clear in front of him: stay with her, or drop her off somewhere else.

She neglected to comment.

They got back to the camp. He left her while he went hunting for some poor animal to bring back for his brother. His fingers twitched against the crossbow and his feet ached; more than anything he wanted to sit down, to stop.

If he could leave Sophia with someone else, it’d be better. He couldn’t do much to help her, he didn’t want the responsibility of doing it, and he didn’t want to see anyone else, or the looks on their face when they saw him. He knew what they’d see, and they wouldn’t be wrong – a wild man who lost himself in the woods, and once the sympathy of surviving the end of the world wore off, they’d realize a lot of that had been there before.

Never had he considered himself one to shy away from the possibility of seeing another person as strongly as he did now, but the thought brought him dread. Rejection wasn’t an issue, nor was loneliness; he’d been alone for his whole life, just him and his brother. It was easier that way. Now, if it could be like that again, it’d be better.

Whether he lived or died wouldn’t matter; he wouldn’t have the obligation to anyone to stick around.


End file.
